


The Bridges I Have Burned (Light My Way Back Home)

by RedTeamShark



Series: American Beauty/American Psycho [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha!Steve, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Gen, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mind Control, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Omega!Bucky, Phenotype Changes, Recovery, Unreliable Narrator, implied past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21781009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: It wonders, in its deep secret dangerous wondering, what happened to that someone. Who were they? Did they choose to become a weapon with the free will they had?--Steve Rogers and James "Bucky" Barnes had each other. They lost each other. The Winter Soldier found Captain America and made a choice. Steve lost Bucky again. Steve found Bucky again, but nothing was the same.Bucky found himself again and nothing important changed.(We have gone off the rails from canon. Hell, I don't think we're even on train metaphors anymore.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Series: American Beauty/American Psycho [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1461979
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	1. Miss You (In The June Gloom)

**Author's Note:**

> While this story deals with trauma and recovery and has some implications of rape and forced breeding, there is nothing to explicitly say one way or the other if that happened in the past. The closest we come is Bucky's own unreliable perceptions overlaying a present situation with something that _might_ have happened before, but eventually he and Steve stop being stubborn idiots and talk about that. Still, proceed with appropriate caution.

Sometimes, the asset thinks.

This is dangerous, but if it doesn’t _say_ then they don’t _know_.

Sometimes it thinks it used to be a some _one_ rather than a some _thing_. This some _one_ had to have things that it isn’t allowed, like memories and free will. It wonders, in its deep secret dangerous wondering, what happened to that some _one_. Who were they? Did they choose to become a weapon with the free will they had?

Would any _one_ choose to become this some _thing_?

It wonders, deep down in secret, until its mission is complete, until its mind is turned to static and pain and cold again. Then those dangerous, wonderful _thoughts_ stop for another stretch.

* * *

The Handler has weapons. It tenses, casts about in its programming and tries to understand (dangerous don’t think just do follow orders) why a Handler would have weapons. Perhaps the Handler intends to give it the weapons for use. This has happened before, maybe.

_“I don’t go places unarmed.”_

It likes the Handler’s English better than his stumbling Russian. The asset keeps its eyes on the Handler even as it is given mission parameters, tracking every subtle shift of weight, every flex of exposed skin. This Handler is new, it (thinks, it _thinks_ and it tries so hard to stop that dangerous path, not while the watching eyes can see inside its brain) is informed. 

Quiet and calm, it takes in the mission parameters as they are laid out. It is going to America. Hydra is in America. Its Handler will see to its needs during travel. It must be a person, or pretend to as well as it can, during travel.

The asset nods to these instructions when appropriate, watches its Handler, and _does not think_.

* * *

They keep calling it by the wrong name. Any name at all is wrong, but this one is--

They keep calling it Boone. It understands, to pretend to be a person is to pretend to have a name, but this one is not (Bourne? Bond? Baum? Barnes? Barnes! No don’t think don’t think don’t remember _don’t think_ ) good. It wants to tell its Handler this, wants to explain that the name is interfering with mission parameters, but to do so strays dangerously close to an admission of thought. Instead it looks at the Handler as he sits down, tries to convey with its eyes that there is a problem.

“You speak English, right? Are you ready to go to work, Soldier?”

It casts into its programming, reworks its mind into the proper configuration as the eyes watch, always watch. English. “Yes, sir.”

“Here.” The Handler passes over a packet, a meal in the form of a bar. “Eat. It’s disgusting, but it’ll keep you upright.”

It eats, mechanical movements of its mechanical arm, food to mouth. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. When the bar is gone it turns the wrapper in its hand, looking again at its Handler. Trying to ask without asking. Trying to know without thinking.

“They’re going to take your metal arm off tomorrow, pack it up and ship it to base. Is that going to be a problem?” The Handler is watching its face and it forces itself to remain calm, remain blank. There was a question. It casts in its mind for words, mouth floundering open and closed for a moment.

“There will be no problems.”

“Good.” A hand reaches up and it flinches, but the fingers only pluck the wrapper from its hand. “Wish they’d given me time to run you through some training exercises. Seeing the Winter Soldier in action… Then again, it’s not like I could _tell_ anyone about it.”

“Agent Rumlow,” The Scientist walks up, speaking to the Handler. These are not words it needs to hear. Not words it needs to understand. This information is not mission relevant. It allows its mind to drift, to (wonder, wander, ponder) detach from the present moment and find a different one. Its Handler wishes to see what it is capable of. This is a test, maybe. It has been tested before, maybe.

The Handler walks away to talk to the Scientist, to look at a _something_ on the other side of the room. It stays perfectly still, counting those in the room, its eyes moving so minutely that perhaps its (plan, idea, dare it call them _thoughts_ ) next action is unknowable. When one of the unimportant ones steps up, it moves, grabs the man by the throat and slams him to the floor. It is on top of the screaming man in a second, unaware of the other yells around it. Even the Scientist is yelling, and that gives it pause, but the Scientist is not its Handler.

Its metal hand squeezes the man’s throat and its flesh fist connects with his nose with a _crunch_ of breaking bones and shattering cartilage. The man bubbles up blood in a frantic wheeze as its hand draws back again, to strike again, to demonstrate--

“Stop.” The calm word freezes all muscle function, its eyes moving away from its target, locking on its Handler. “Stand down, soldier.”

It moves off the bleeding man, steps back and stands near the chair, its chest heaving. The Handler speaks to the Scientist and she shakes her head, staring at it. Slowly, calmly, the Handler walks to it and reaches a hand towards it. “Show me your right hand.”

The asset allows its hand to be turned, inspected, and released. It looks to the Handler, jaw clenching and unclenching with words it (wishes, wants, needs) does not have permission to speak.

“Something to say for yourself? Speak up.”

Voice rusted, emotionless, monotone, it forces the words out. “The Winter Soldier in action.”

The Handler grins and it wonders if it’s capable of smiling back.

* * *

Static, pain, cold.

Mission parameters. The Handler with his smile of (pride?) approval. 

Create a boating accident. Fake a suicide. Fire a gun into a crowd and hit only one person.

Static, pain, cold.

There is a mission failure. It does not (panic) allow this. Adjust mission parameters itself, finish the job.

The Handler asks it about the man on the roof, the man with the shield, and it only stares. “That was not my objective.”

Has it failed to complete an objective? The target is dead, riddled with bullets in his torso. It remains awake, aware, awaiting further instructions.

The Handler has a Handler of his own. This Superior Handler comes to it with its next priority elimination and (memory) something dangerous flares in its mind. Words that do not belong to its Handler bubble to the surface of its brain for a moment.

_I’m with you to the end of the line._

It does not allow itself to react to these things. It does not _think_ , to think is to be a person and that is not its mission. 

The asset would have a much easier time of this if its Handler were nearer, but its Handler tells it to act with a different team, tells it that he will be close by but not interfering. It (likes) finds this Handler easy to work with. His eyes don’t wander, his hands don’t touch for too long. These things have happened before, these things have caused it to decommission Handlers in the past--

It remembers doing those things. It keeps those memories secret.

The man on the bridge calls it by a name, looks at it like it’s a (person friend known factor) memory and says “Bucky” and it feels mission parameters crack. It flees as the Handler moves in, retreats from another mission failure. Is it losing effectiveness as a weapon? Is it broken?

Its metal arm is broken. Technicians administer repairs as it tries to stop thinking, to stop _remembering_ , to--

_Bucky_.

It craves the static, the pain, the cold. The place where _thoughts_ don’t intercede into its programming.

“Mission report.”

If it does not comply they will give it the static, the pain, the cold. This has happened before. It has, it _remembers_ and all it wants is to be allowed to forget, to be freed from thought. Weapons don’t _think_.

“Mission report, _now_.”

The urge to speak floods its throat, words trying to claw out of its mouth and its breathing goes shallow with (fear) effort, cold sweat on the back of its neck. Comply. Misbehave. It’s broken, it must be fixed. The static, the pain, the cold--

The harsh slap across its face draws a grunt of pain, almost a whine. The pain isn’t right, but it loosens the words from its mouth. “There was a man on the bridge… Who was he?”

The Superior Handler breaks eye contact for half a second and it reads the flicker of pupil as an answer more than the words. _It isn’t supposed to know that._ “You met him earlier this week on another assignment.”

A rooftop at night, gunfire, a weapon--no a _shield_ thrown at it that it catches and throws back before fleeing. Another assignment. “I knew him.”

The Superior Handler is talking, but the words are static in its ears. The wrong pain, the wrong static, it needs--it _needs_. This is wrong, this entire situation is wrong. Its eyes flicker to the Handler, looking for an answer to a question it can’t ask.

_Help me._

“Wipe him and start over.”

It meets the Handler’s eyes with something new, with (begging pleading desperately _needing_ ) emotion it shouldn’t have. Fear. The chair locks it in place and suddenly the static, the pain, the cold that it has been craving is the last thing it wants. Wants, it _wants_ , it--

He.

Bucky screams in the seconds before he’s gone again.

* * *

The Handler grabs it before mission start, after mission parameters have been set. He holds the asset by the back of the neck, fingers digging in tight, voice low. “Do not kill Steve Rogers.”

“Mission parameters indicate otherwise.”

“I’m overriding those mission parameters.”

It grasps the Handler’s arm, pulling the touch away. “The mission comes from the Superior Handler.”

The Handler frowns, taking his arm back when the asset lets go. “Then make a choice, who do you want to listen to, him or me?”

It isn’t allowed choices. It isn’t allowed to defy orders. It looks to the Handler, swallowing the words. “Mission parameters.”

“Steve Rogers survives. The rest of the assignment can stay.”

It nods once, turning and walking away. New mission parameters. Slow down Steve Rogers, don’t kill him. It can do that.

It isn’t defying orders.

Not until it finds itself hauling Steve Rogers out of the water and onto the bank of the river, looking down and (feeling wanting remembering) the program cracks.

_I’m with you to the end of the line._

The asset--Bucky--the asset-- _Bucky_ runs away after that.


	2. (My Favorite “What If”) My Best “I’ll Never Know”

“Steve, you better get back here.”

He hears so much more in Natasha’s voice than the words convey. Her usually composed tone is still there, little affectation to the words, no panic. And yet he hears so much beyond those six words.

Steve double-times away from Clint with just a glance, weaving through the rubble of the city towards Natasha and the quinjet.

He taps his comm onto mute without a second thought, seeing her pass her earpiece back to Banner. “What is it, Romanoff?”

She steps past him, tilts her head to indicate he should follow. They’re pulling survivors from the wreckage, Thor lifting huge chunks of rubble so Pietro can rush in and run out with the injured, pass them on to Bruce for assessment. Natasha stops at the shattered remains of a market stall and for a moment Steve plunges back into the ice.

He recognizes that metal arm, that dark hair, that bloodied face.

“Bucky…”

Steve’s on his knees before he realizes he’d moved, one hand tentatively reaching out, touching under Bucky’s jaw. There’s a pulse, weak and thready under his shaking fingertips, and he looks around quickly, doesn’t think twice about shoving away broken chunks of concrete and wood. He reaches to roll Bucky over and Natasha’s hand on his arm stops him.

“Wait, look.”

The pinprick focus of panic widens enough to follow her pointing, to see what he missed the first time--a metal pole, driven through Bucky’s right hip. Part of a road sign, he thinks, looking around dumbly to see what kind of sign. As if that matters. “Help… help me move him.”

“Steve, I don’t know--”

“Help me get him to the jet, Romanoff!”

Working together, they manage to get Bucky up. Steve takes most of his weight, grits his teeth against the feeling of blood leaking out of his friend and onto him. He stumbles and staggers and tries not to think about the war.

_“I thought you were dead.”_

_“And I thought you were smaller.”_

He still has a job to do. Bucky can’t take priority over the team, even when he should. Clint’s curse over the comms forces Steve back into the present, forces him to maintain some sort of composure.

He taps his mic back on. “Clint?”

“Enemy engagement, they’ve got me pinned down. We missed a bunker, Cap.” There’s the sound of an explosion and running footsteps. Steve looks around, nodding to Pietro. “I can’t get a read on where it’s coming from.”

“Hang on, Pietro’s on his way to get you.”

He’d go back himself, but… He can only prioritize so well. “Bruce!” He calls, getting Bucky onto the jet as carefully as possible. “I need you to take us out of here. Priority.”

“We’re still--” Bruce’s words drop off, his gaze on Natasha. He nods slowly, getting on the jet and beginning to prepare to fly away. “Cap, if you can fly, I can take care of medical.”

“No, just… focus on flying. I got this.” Easing Bucky down to the floor, he looks over his shoulder. “Nat, you coming?”

“I’ll stay here and finish clean up. And I’ll call in Sam. Stay in touch, Steve.” She nods him off, stepping away as the quinjet’s back hatch begins to automatically close.

Steve watches until she disappears from sight, turning his attention back to Bucky. Despite the injury, despite the explosions he’s been through, he realizes with something like horror that Bucky is _awake_. Awake and staring at him with eyes wide with pain and rolling with panic. It’s too much like the helicarrier, seeing him trapped under rubble and struggling to get out.

“Bucky, can you hear me? You’re injured, try not to move. We’re going to get you to a hospital. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

His chest rises and falls rapidly, his mouth working against words. Bucky wheezes out a breath and Steve leans closer, just barely able to hear him over the whine of the jet engines. “You keep saving me.”

Steve swallows, his hand finding Bucky’s without a second thought, squeezing gently. “Always, Bucky. I’m with you to the end of the line.”

* * *

Thank god for Doctor Helen Cho. Bruce sets them down and she meets them at the helipad they’ve landed the quinjet on, ordering various staffers in transporting Bucky to the operating room. Steve stops long enough to grab the ringing sat phone from Clint’s go bag, still tucked under the pilot’s seat, before waving Bruce back to Sokovia. “I’ll update you all when I can,” he promises, answering the phone as he jogs after Bucky and the doctors. “Rogers.”

“Steve, it’s Sam. Talk to me, man. Natasha called and said I needed to get in touch with you on Clint’s secure line.”

He slows down as an orderly gestures for him to stay back, looking around the hallway. “It’s Bucky,” Steve says, voice softening. “We went to Sokovia to try to stop the twins, and… he was there. Hydra attacked the city while we were there. Nat ID’d him among the casualties and we evac’d him to Germany. Helen Cho happens to be here. He’s in surgery now.”

Sam sighs over the crackly phone connection, the sound extending for almost a full ten seconds. “Any idea what kind of condition he’s in, mentally?”

“He was barely conscious when Natasha found him. Scared? He seemed to remember me before he passed out on the jet. He… he’s got part of a road sign through his hip, Sam.”

“Okay… Odds are good he’s going to come to confused, which isn’t safe for anyone who can’t take a punch from that metal fist and keep going. Stay in the room with him as soon as they’ll let you, try to get them to let you administer medication. I wouldn’t suggest restraints right now, not until you can get a read on him. Steve, he might…” Sam’s voice lowers with regret. “He might be the soldier from the bridge, not the Bucky from your past.”

“I’ll handle him. Think you can get to the tower, touch base with Natasha when she gets back from Sokovia? I might need the two of you out here.”

“I’ll see what I can do. And Steve? Take care of yourself.” Sam hangs up and Steve tucks the sat phone into a pouch on his uniform, going to the small waiting room outside the OR.

She comes out almost an hour later, time enough for him to have started, stopped, and resumed pacing six or seven times. The blood on his uniform is tacky by now, rust colored stains across the red and white stripes on his torso. Steve’s head snaps up as Doctor Cho approaches, his mouth already opening with questions.

She holds up a hand to silence him, her face serious. “I’d like to know who we’re dealing with in there, Captain Rogers. Despite our anesthesiologist administering a near-fatal dose, he woke up twice during surgery and nearly got his femoral artery sliced open while attempting to escape the table.”

Steve exhales slowly, forcing the tension off his shoulders. It creeps right back on, but he keeps his eyes on Cho. “His name is Bucky. He’s… I think he might be like me. Scientifically enhanced.”

She nods, her frown not lessening any. “Does he have your healing factor?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If he doesn’t have a healing factor, his odds of ever walking again are slim. The metal impalement damaged a lot of connective tissue.”

Steve nods slowly in understanding, glancing past her as Bucky is wheeled out of the OR. “Is it something your machine can fix?”

“Not my portable one. He’s lucky to have made it to my operating table, flying him to my lab in Seoul is out of the question. If he heals, he’s going to have to do it as close to the old fashioned way as he can.” She touches his arm gently, following his gaze to where Bucky is being set up in a room. “One last question before I let you go to him. Is he dangerous?”

Steve licks his lips, darting his gaze up to her. She helped, she deserves the truth. “I hope not.”

* * *

If he wasn’t enhanced, Steve doubts he would be able to tell the moment Bucky woke up post-surgery. There’s a brief uptick in the heart monitor, no more than a flicker of pulse increase that’s gone so fast he thinks he imagined it. He watches Bucky’s face closely from his seat, looking for any signs of movement. Almost nothing, but…

Steve leans forward, his breath leaving him in a wheeze as a metal hand wraps around his throat. “Bucky--”

The panic in those eyes is different than before, it’s not the look from before he passed out in the quinjet, the pain and fear combining into a desperate need for escape. This is the panic of not knowing, of time lost. Steve has a feeling he’s worn this look at least once before, waking up in New York City seventy years after going into the ice.

The eyes settle on him and the grip on his throat tightens for a moment, before easing. “Mission parameters are that Steve Rogers survives.” He flexes his metal fingers, dropping his hand to the bed while Steve gets his breath back. When he looks up again, he’s… perhaps not _more_ lucid, but certainly less panicked. “This isn’t the standard waking protocol.”

 _Standard waking protocol?_ No, he can’t focus on those things. Right now he needs to keep Bucky calm, keep him from lashing out and causing a risk to the hospital staff. “Do you know who I am?”

The eyes narrow for a moment, before he nods. “Steve Rogers. Captain America. The Handler told me not to kill you.”

That’s… less than comforting. “Do you know who _you_ are?”

There’s something unreadable on Bucky’s face, almost scrutinizing. He hunches his shoulders in slightly, dropping his gaze. “It is standard to be referred to as the Winter Soldier. A name is not necessary unless a Handler deems otherwise.”

There’s a small uptick of the heart monitor, Bucky’s pulse jumping by a few beats per minute. He’s nervous? Steve slowly sits down in the chair, watching him closely. “I’d like you to tell me what you remember. Take as long as you need.”

Bucky bites his lip, eyes focused in front of him, occasionally darting glances to Steve, or around the room. He exhales slowly, his fingers curling in the hospital sheet. “I made you ride The Cyclone at Coney Island and you threw up.” He swallows, looking over to Steve from the corner of his eye again. “You called me by a name. Is it necessary?”

 _“He might be the soldier from the bridge, not the Bucky from your past.”_ Sam’s warning echoes in his head, but this… This seems like neither option. This is a Bucky who _remembers_ him, to an extent, but… Steve isn’t built for this. He’s built for taking on his problems head on. Sure, he can strategize and lead, but he can’t work his way through a psychological minefield with barely any information. “I’d like to use your name, yeah. Do you remember…” Pick something easy, maybe. “The last time you saw me?”

The eyes that meet him are steadier, a sound escaping that’s almost a snort of laughter. “Just before I woke up here. You were saving me.”

“How about the time before that?”

That one takes a little longer, Bucky’s brows furrowing. “We were… you were my mission. I had to stop you but I was told not to kill you. I...I _chose_ to ignore orders. The Handler told me to choose.”

“Anything you remember doing between those two?”

“I went to a museum. I… _wanted_ to know why you were important. I saw my face in a memorial. I was a _person_. They made me stop being that.” His voice cracks, one fist hitting the bed lightly. “They took it away. I couldn’t _want_ or _need_ or _think_. Follow orders. Be a weapon. The Winter Soldier, the Asset, the--the _thing_ they made me. They killed me, Steve.” There are tears on his face, tears that Steve wants to brush away, but he doesn’t dare move. Not when Bucky’s so unstable.

He sits back, silent for the time being, trying to figure out what move to make next. Bucky’s mind needs to be fixed before his body. He _needs_ Bucky back, more than he’s needed anything in a long time. Steve’s been pushing it to the back of his mind with little effect, the overwhelming urge to drop all other priorities and hunt across the globe for Bucky. Every Hydra base they don’t find him in is both a relief and a let down. 

But he’s here now, and he needs help. Carefully, telegraphing his movements as obviously as he can, Steve reaches over and takes Bucky’s hand in his. “I’m going to get you help, Buck. Promise.”

Bucky’s fingers curl in his, squeezing gently. He looks down at their hands, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “What’re you gonna do, punk?”

“Whatever I have to.”

* * *

Natasha brings Sam with her when she comes back. He’s grateful for the familiar faces, for the help. Bucky isn't as bad off as he'd feared, but he's definitely not all there. Fading in and out of uneasy sleep while Steve holds his hand. Waking up sometimes with incredible lucidity, talking softly about the things he remembers. They’re jumbled, and he seems to keep confusing Steve with a Handler, but his gently imploring eyes are the only place the question is. Other times Bucky jolts awake with a shout, grabbing for a knife that isn’t under his pillow, nearly wrenching the stitches on his leg open. Steve holds him down bodily while he screams, until his eyes roll back and he passes out again. He hates himself for the look of fear on Bucky’s face that always comes just before sleep. Is this what Hydra did to him? Held him down when he was hurt and made him sleep?

He isn’t sure he wants Natasha to translate the garbled Russian Bucky starts mumbling, but he’s going to need it.

Her hand settles on his shoulder, soft and cool, a coffee cup pressing into his free hand. Steve looks up, gives her and Sam both a nod. “Thanks for coming.”

“What are friends for?” Sam sits down across from him, a prudent distance away from Bucky. He’s only human, after all, a punch from that metal fist is going to slow him down a hell of a lot more than it will Steve. “Anything changed since our conference call this afternoon?”

Steve looks to Bucky, squeezing his hand gently. “He added another party trick to the routine. Half-awake, mumbling to himself, I think in Russian.” 

“He’s got seventy years worth of memories all mixed up in there…” Natasha sits down gingerly on the arm of Steve’s chair, sipping her own coffee. She looks worn out and Steve briefly debates on telling her to go to the hotel room and get some sleep before pushing the idea aside. She’ll call him a hypocrite. “I’ve been reaching out to some contacts discreetly, looking for someone to deprogram whatever Hydra did to him… If it’s even possible, it’s not going to be easy.”

“Any hits?”

“One. Wakanda, it’s a small African nation. From the outside, mostly rural farmers, but if rumors are to be believed… They’re sitting on the world’s supply of vibranium and hiding a gem among the fields.” Natasha shrugs, inspecting her nails with feigned nonchalance. “It’s not a guarantee, from what I hear they don’t like outsiders.”

Steve nods slowly. “We have to try. I have to do something for him, I can’t just… I _won’t_ just abandon him.”

“Steve.” His eyes dart to Sam, meeting his serious gaze. “It’s not just deprogramming. The stuff he did… that stuff sticks with you. Being brainwashed into it doesn’t make it any less impactful. Even if he gets clear of what Hydra did to his head, what they used him to do isn’t going to go away. For him or for the outside world.”

They’re all too aware of the unspoken implications. The Winter Soldier has a kill list as long as Steve’s arm, topped with the likes of JFK and Howard Stark. There are a score of governments around the world who would want to try him legally, and probably just as many who would be happy to black bag him and put him in an anonymous grave. Not to mention the ones that would want to continue Hydra’s legacy with a Winter Soldier of their own… Steve squeezes Bucky’s hand again, shaking his head.

“Once his head’s clear, we’ll talk about it. I’m not going to make decisions for him… He’s had enough of that for one life.”

They stay quiet as Bucky sleeps, taking their own naps in shifts. It’s enough just to know where Bucky is, that he’s safe, for now. They can worry about where his head is at later.


	3. Starting to Forget (Just What Summer Ever Meant)

Sam’s not sure where this lands on the scale of progress, but he’s going to take what he can get.

A Bucky who is a) calm enough to talk to him and b) lucid enough to answer questions is just fine by him.

“They told me I could defend myself,” Bucky murmurs, ducking his head for a moment, making a vague gesture. “Against, you know,” he gestures again and Sam furrows his brows together. “ _Alphas_.”

Well, that sinks into his stomach like a stone. Steve and Natasha are both out of the room for the time being, and Sam shifts in his chair. “Do you feel threatened by them?”

“No, I--” Bucky frowns, as if consulting his own mind for an answer. “ _Some_ of them I’ve had to decommission, but the new Handler is okay. So was the last one--shit, wait, that’s not what you mean, is it?” He reaches up, rubbing his temple with one hand. “ _Steve_ is okay. He’s… If he wanted to, I wouldn’t stop him, but I don’t think he wants to?”

Sam shrugs noncommittally, sitting back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling. “Do you remember any other things they told you?”

“How to fight, how to kill, how to disappear. How to follow orders. How to look over my shoulder. How to keep moving even when there was pain,” Bucky lists in monotone, his fists curling in the sheets for a moment. “How to be a weapon.”

He has to ask carefully, prevent Bucky from going into a spiral. Sam inhales and exhales slowly, watching the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest match his breathing. “Do you remember what they did to you?”

“Static. Pain. Cold. They made me forget. They made me stop being a person. Took it away.” He glances up, his mouth downturned, eyes wide and hurt. “Took away everything, when they had to. Only gave back half if I was good.”

“And if you were bad after they’d taken everything away?”

“Then they’d give me the static and the pain and the cold. Start me over.” His voice changes, mimicking someone else. “ _Wipe him and start over._ ” He swallows, eyes swimming with unshed tears. “They didn’t let me remember being Bucky. That was against the rules.”

“You know that you can remember being Bucky now, though, right?”

“Kinda. Sometimes. It’s all fuzzy. This… I keep thinking that this is a dream. I have a lot of those now. I didn’t used to.” He looks at his hands, opening and closing his fists slowly. “Tell me again?”

The gentle mantra has worked when Bucky starts getting upset, when he’s lucid but starts to slip. Sam sits forward a little, his voice low and soothing. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Your friends call you Bucky. You were born on March 10, 1917…”

He doesn’t stop when Steve and Natasha come back into the room, doesn’t stop until he reaches the end. “...In Sokovia, you were in the market--”

“--buying plums--” Bucky cuts in softly.

“Buying plums,” Sam agrees. “When there was an explosion. Your friend Steve saved you, brought you to a hospital. That’s where you are now.”

Anything Bucky admits to doing while under Hydra’s influence has to be taken with a grain of salt, but the listing of chronological facts does what they want it to. Bucky breathes slowly and calmly, looking around the hospital room. His cheeks flush when he looks at Steve and he darts his gaze away, settling on Natasha instead. He frowns, looking her up and down, before looking to Sam again. Bucky and Natasha haven’t said two words to each other so far; she’s hardly spoken when he’s awake. It’s something to look into later.

“What’s the thing she keeps saying she’s going to find? A deprogrammer?”

“Yeah, Bucky.” Sam smiles, nods shortly. Short term memory between bouts of sleeping has been sporadic at best. They’re lucky to get the same Bucky twice in a row between naps, one that remembers things they’ve previously covered has been just wishful thinking. “Someone to help you differentiate in your brain between what you _want_ to do and what you’ve been _told_ to do.”

“People can do that?”

Steve shifts his weight, dropping into a chair next to Sam. “I know, it sounds crazy, but--”

“I’m still in favor of the Clint Barton method,” Natasha cuts him off, propping herself in the window frame and holding up her phone. “Percussive maintenance, cognitive recalibration.” She gives Bucky a smile. “I could hit you real hard in the head.”

“Please don’t.” His voice is low, but there’s no fear in it. Maybe this really is progress.

It’d be more believable if they knew who they were going to be dealing with the next time Bucky woke up. If they didn’t have to risk Steve getting cold-cocked with a metal fist because he yawned and startled Bucky.

Little steps, Sam reminds himself. _Very_ little steps.

* * *

He sort of likes the naps.

He’s not so deeply asleep like under the sedatives, or in the cold, that he doesn’t know what’s going on. The people that come in and out of the room, the soft conversations between his three guests, the hand that sometimes touches him when he’s sleeping. He likes that hand, he likes how warm it is when it touches his hand or his shoulder.

There’s something important in the back of his mind, inching closer to the front, a message he’s supposed to give. It scatters every time he opens his eyes, however, timidly returning only when he’s dragged back down into sleep.

_“Long term medication doesn’t hold up to the freezes.”_

_“Did no one tell you that the asset is an Omega?”_

_“Don’t fuck it.”_

Bucky jolts awake, looking around the room. Empty. He’s alone. His breathing goes shallow, his body trying to curl in on itself, stopped by the spike of pain in his leg. Right, he’ll rip his sutures if he’s not careful, he needs to--

He takes a slow breath in, puts his panic on ice and calls up the comfort of routine. Assess the situation. Alone and injured in a hospital room. Unable to get out of the bed. Unrestrained. Bucky catalogues his injuries, noting the ache of a potential concussion, the dull throb of cracked ribs, the chilling numbness of his right leg. He sits up as much as he can, rips the blanket aside and looks down. Hesitantly, he reaches out and touches his leg. It’s a mess of bandages up by his hip, loose pants and a soft sock over the rest. When he thinks about wiggling his toes, really focuses on it, there’s a small twitch at the end of the bed.

That’s his leg, right?

 _“_ Concentrate _. Close your fist. Open your fist. Again. Point your index finger. Bend your elbow. Hold this--_ no _you need to_ control _your grip strength. Try again.”_

He’s not even aware of the high, animal whine in the back of his throat. He presses more firmly on his thigh, tries to feel the flesh under the bandages. His left arm responds to pressure increases, but it lacks pain receptors, temperature sensors, doesn’t have the ability to differentiate material like his right arm. He switches the hand pressing on his leg, trying to focus, trying to feel the metal versus the skin.

Oh, god, they’re turning him into a machine. Replacing his broken parts with new metal ones, he’s going to have to learn all over and every failure, every lack of compliance--

“Bucky?”

A shadow blacks out the doorway and he flinches back, his jaw trembling. Words, explanation, pleas all jumble together in his mind and he looks down with a wince. Caught, caught misbehaving, what will they take this time? What more of him is left to be taken away? “‘M sorry.”

Slowly, carefully, the shadowed shape enters the room. Bigger than most of the scientists--this must be his Handler. The shadowy figure sits down next to the bed, putting one hand gently on the sheet by his thigh, palm up. “It’s okay. Tell me what you were doing?”

The upward inflection doesn’t disguise the order. The offered hand isn’t any less dangerous just because it hasn’t hit him yet. He curls and uncurls his metal fist, focuses on the end of the bed and makes his toes--metal toes now, metal fingers and metal toes--twitch again. “Assessing. I can twitch my toes, sir.”

The silence next to him draws out long enough that fear creeps back over his mind, douses him in cold water. Unbidden, a small whimper leaves his throat. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

“Bucky, no, that’s not--” The Handler lets out a heavy exhale, drawing his hand back, and Bucky braces for the strike with his eyes squeezed shut. It doesn’t come for long enough that he opens his eyes again, watches the Handler run that raised hand against his own face. “Can I turn a light on?”

Handlers don’t need to ask for permission from their weapon. He stills, teeth sinking into his lip for a moment. It’s a test. “If that’s what you want to do, sir.”

The light isn’t bright, but in the shadows of the room it’s almost blinding. He squeezes his eyes shut again for a moment, opening them slowly and darting a glance to the Handler. Behave. Comply. They won’t take anything away if he’s good.

Except the Handler is blond with blue eyes and even with the pale of exhaustion, the dark circles, the thinned cheeks, he _knows_ that face and it’s not _fair_ , how did they--Bucky swallows convulsively, his fists clenching at his sides. He _buried_ those memories, so deep down that they couldn’t be touched, couldn’t be taken away, that face is _his_ comfort. He’s been _good_ , they can’t take away St--

His mind snaps shut like a trap before he can think the name.

It’s his. They can’t take it away. It doesn’t matter how much of him they turn into metal, it doesn’t matter what hells they drag him through, he won’t give that up. As long as he has that little hold out, he’s still a person, he’s still important to someone in the world.

The Handler puts his hand on the bed again, invitation. Fingertips just touch the bandages on his thigh and another thought drifts to the surface of his panic-soaked mind. The thought that woke him up first. The Handler is big, an Alpha, and that realization sends conscious thought into another panic-spiral.

“You’re not supposed to,” he whispers, the words choking in his throat. “I-I’m allowed to fight back, you’re not _supposed to_.”

“Not supposed to what, Bucky?”

He glances pointedly at the hand on the bed before looking away. _Long term medication doesn’t hold up to the freezes._ He hasn’t been given his suppressors. Is this the… His breath exhales shakily, his eyes on his lap. He hasn’t been given his suppressors and now there’s an Alpha with him that is his Handler, that looks like _him_ and suddenly it’s all so dangerously clear in his head. He can’t move, he can’t escape, he won’t be allowed to fight this time. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut tight, refusing to let his fear show. “Don’t… don’t make it hurt. _Please_.” He’s never--not as an Omega--he doesn’t _think_ he has before--and what had the Omegas said? _It hurts if you don’t want it._

The hand touches his arm and he flinches, unable to stop the whimper in the back of his throat. Don’t fight. Comply. Don’t let them take anything else. Except he’s being _good_ and they’re _still_ taking this from him. The touch eases, before coming back more firmly, slowly pushing him back against the pillows. The hand is warm and almost comforting. He doesn’t want to open his eyes, he doesn’t want to see the Handler and think of someone else. He won’t, he _can’t_ let that last piece of himself be lost.

“It’s okay, Buck… Just get some rest, and it will all be okay…”

Orders. He can follow orders. The Handler wants him compliant, so he’ll comply. The Handler wants him asleep, that might make it easier. He won’t fight. He won’t fight. He won’t give them a reason to take anything more from him than they already are.

A dark tunnel opens up in his mind and Bucky flees down it. What happens to his body doesn’t matter. Down deep in his mind is his smiling secret, a little guy from Brooklyn who’s too dumb not to run away from a fight. He can’t be that brave, not in the face of this.

* * *

Steve stays awake and close, Bucky’s words echoing in his head. They don’t mean much to him, if they’re even supposed to. He strokes a hand gently over Bucky’s arm, scooting the chair just a little closer.

There’s three main flavors of his friend that they seem to be dealing with: the Soldier, who tends to wake subtly and react violently; Bucky, who’s mostly lucid to the present but certainly has gaps in his memory; and a third, nameless one that seems to be an amalgamation of the two, the Soldier asking in Bucky’s familiar voice if Steve is his Handler now.

He’s almost positive that this most recent one is that. And hopefully not a fourth option.

It’s dangerous, even for him, but Steve hunches forward over the bed, pillows his head in his arms and drifts into light sleep. Bucky is still as death beside him, only the heart monitor’s movement confirming that he’s still alive. He smells different, too, something that Steve has been trying to put his finger on for the three days they’ve been in this hospital room. There’s the stench of fear on him almost constantly, but under it…

His head tilts, half-awake, and his nose bumps Bucky’s thigh. Steve feels a hand swat half-heartedly into his hair, fingers curling around the short strands before going slack. It’s the opposite of Brooklyn, 1937, when he’d had pneumonia again and Bucky had spent the night in a chair at his bedside, ended up sleeping hunched over Steve’s bed and spent the next week complaining about the godawful crick in his neck. 

_“You didn’t have to sleep right there, jerk.”_

_“And you didn’t have to push yourself so hard you got sick, punk.”_

Bucky’s sickness can’t be healed with soup and sponge baths, but like hell Steve is going to leave him during it. Like hell he’s not going to return the favor when--

It’s a mirror.

Steve sits bolt upright, his heart pounding in his chest. He moves without thought, even when Bucky’s eyes fly open, even when the gaze that turns on him is panic-stricken. It's beyond stupid, beyond _dangerous_ to startle Bucky awake, to be this close when he wakes up, but he's being driven by an instinct deeper than his admittedly tenuous sense of self-preservation. His nose presses into the side of Bucky’s neck, breathing deep, his eyes squeezing shut. “Bucky…”

“Steve, d-don’t--” Bucky pulls away, one hand going to the back of his neck, metal fingers closing tight around it. Far too late, and something that should have been far more obvious to him sooner.

Steve sits back, holding up his hands placatingly to apologize. His eyes are on Bucky, a new worry surfacing. “They made you an Omega.”


	4. (Cutting Open Old Scars) Again And Again

Sam goes home. He has a bondmate and a kid and Steve can’t exactly begrudge him wanting to go back to them. Especially after their conference call with the tower. Hell, if he wasn’t in the midst of everything with Bucky, Steve would be on his way back, too. Mostly to rip Tony up one side and down the other for being reckless. And Clint for letting it happen. And Bruce. And basically everyone involved, come to think of it.

He steps into the suite of rooms that are currently housing them, blinking in surprise to see Natasha and Bucky, sat together on the couch. They’re both cross-legged, a splay of cards between them. He eases into the room, taking a seat in the chair and looking past them, out the window, as they continue their game.

Wakanda is amazing, its bright modern architecture mixed with images he’s seen online and in books of traditional African design. Most everything about Africa from his school days is pretty universally negative, but the research he’s done in the future has pushed a lot of that out. And actually being here… One country doesn’t represent the entire continent, but Steve can feel an appreciation for Wakanda growing in him. He can certainly appreciate their technological advances.

There’s a brief knock at the door, making all three of them look up quickly, before it slides open. “Sorry to interrupt. Shuri would like to see the Sergeant down in medical. And Captain, his highness Prince T’Challa requests your presence.” Their personal guard gives a smile, her hand turning, the beads on her wrist lighting up. “Fear not, Agent Romanoff, you’ve also been requested to meet with our Social Outreach Department.”

Natasha shuffles the cards away, all three of them rising. She stretches her arms over her head, grinning. “Don’t have too much fun without me, boys.”

Bucky snorts. “You wanna swap jobs? Let the teenager poke and prod you and I’ll go make nice with the government?”

“Hey, we all have our skill sets. Yours is dealing with children, mine is dealing with adults who act like children.”

Steve shakes his head, clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder gently. “If you’re not done before me, I’ll come down and keep you company, okay?”

It’s one of Bucky’s good days. One of the days when he’s _Bucky_ , when he knows where he is and what year it is and why he’s here. He hasn’t once today flinched away from them, or asked about a mission, or referred to Steve as a Handler. They’d all been worried that the transition from the hospital in Germany to Wakanda would be a set back, but so far he hasn’t been any worse than in Germany.

The list of wrongs done to Bucky just keeps growing. Making him forget who he was. Hacking off his arm. Changing his phenotype. Forcing him to become a killer. The things that Bucky remembers, chooses to share, are their own list of horrors. Steve feels an involuntary shiver race up his spine, replaying a late night conversation in his head. Bucky asking if they’d taken his leg off because it was broken. He’d had to help the other man out of his pants to show that his leg was indeed still the flesh and bone one he was born with.

If Bucky can actually be separated from the Winter Soldier, Steve is going to do everything in his power to make sure that his friend never has to question reality again. Never has to question his own perceptions, his own senses. He’s not going to let that happen to Bucky.

He’s not.

* * *

“Sergeant Barnes, so good to see you.” Shuri’s practically bouncing on her toes, her eyes lighting up to look at him. There’s a memory buried in there, someone else who looks--not at _him_ , but at _someone_ with that same spark of excitement. He draws himself a little closer, feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass. “Would you like to have a seat?”

“Sure.” He sits down carefully, thankfully on a chair rather than an exam table. Shuri bustles around the other side of the room, before joining him, settling onto her own chair and passing him a bottle of water.

“How’s the leg brace? Any discomfort?”

“None. I keep forgetting it’s there, actually. Glad it’s waterproof.” He smiles a little, taking a sip of the water. Shuri is… a lot, sometimes, but he’s almost as comfortable around her as he is with Steve. Impressive, considering they’ve met less than a handful of times. “How’s the new suit coming?”

She waves a hand dismissively at that, snorting. “It would be coming along much better if my bonehead brother would actually try it out.”

“Big brothers are like that.” His smile softens, more genuine. “He won’t appreciate your hard work until it saves his ass.” The words echo in his head, spoken by someone else in another time. _You won’t appreciate my hard work until it saves your ass._ Fingers guiding his, a needle and thread--

It’s gone and Bucky doesn’t mean to chase it, he tries to make himself let the memory go as he takes another drink. Most of his life before the fall is back. He remembers his childhood, his family, Steve, signing up for the war. There’s a blank patch in Europe, sometime between when the 107th was captured and when he saw Steve again, taller now. He remembers the Commandos. He remembers the train. Some of it is clearer, some of it is fuzzier. Some of the details are wrong.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky blinks back to the present, his eyes clearing. “I was chasing again,” he admits, shifting his weight, crossing his legs to mirror Shuri’s posture. The hydraulics of the brace on his right leg hiss softly. “I had a sister, she taught me how to sew. I was trying to remember why.”

Shuri smiles and nods, turning her wrist to display something from the string of beads on it. “It was a long time ago. Captain Rogers experiences the same issues with minutiae from his youth. That sort of thing is typical of aging, our brains tracking over paths that we relay a lot, allowing memories that aren’t repeated to fade. If I were to hand you a needle and thread, you could probably still sew as she taught you without remembering the exact reason behind the lesson.” The display, a model of a brain, lights up to emphasize her words, lights trailing over it. Some are faded, others are bright. “We call it muscle memory, but it’s really just the memory of what is repeated. You only need to be taught it once or twice before you can do it, so you remember how to do it from repetition, rather than remembering why it was taught to you.”

“Makes sense. I don’t remember the day they taught us how to strip a rifle in basic training, but I remember how to do it.” He leans forward a little, looking closer at the model. “It’s so weird… it’s just floating in the air, like a movie without a screen.” It’s not the first one he’s seen, but every time… They’re beyond what even science fiction could come up with back when he was a kid. Bucky reaches up, passing his hand through the image. It doesn’t _feel_ like anything but air, which makes sense, he supposes. It doesn’t feel like anything but air if he puts his hand between the projector and the screen while watching a movie.

Shifting her wrist, Shuri changes the image in front of him. “When you attempt to remember, sometimes your neural pathways become crossed.” The red line of memory across the projected brain moves slowly, suddenly taking a sharp turn down a different route. “You attempt to recall an event on a specific day, and something in the details triggers a different memory. Or you’re simply unable to recall at all, blocked by physical damage or emotional trauma. Your brain shuts the memories off to try to protect itself from more harm.”

“Like Steve.” He swallows, trying not to wince. “I… I held onto Steve for as long as I could. I remember that. I wouldn’t let them take him from me. They did, eventually, but… but he was my reminder. He was the path home, back to who I was, away from what they tried to make me be.” He’s breathing more harshly, his hands shaking. Bucky grips his knees to try to stop them. “They took him from me. They turned his memory bad. Unsafe. And then they took it away. And I was no one.”

“And what does it feel like, to see him again?”

“It… I was scared. I was scared when I saw him again. That he was going to be used to hurt me again. I wanted to forget. I wanted to--” Bucky sucks in a harsh breath, his eyes closed tight. “No, that’s not right-- _I_ wanted to remember him, to go home again. The other me, the me they made, _that one_ wanted to forget.” He exhales slowly, forces himself to breathe in and out a few times. Calming exercises. He opens his eyes again, meeting Shuri’s steady gaze. “It’s better now. I like seeing him now. It feels safe.”

“He’s told me a bit about your time in the hospital in Germany. The different levels of lucidity.” The image projected from her bracelet disappears with a flick of her wrist. “How much do you recall of that?”

“There’s… gaps. Some of them I must have been asleep, but some of it… It’s the same sort of holes from when…” He looks away, biting down on his tongue for a moment. “I remember that I did things, but I don’t remember the details. I don’t want to. It’s like those gaps. Like I don’t want to remember what I did in the hospital.”

They’ve had only a couple of these talking sessions, and he’s been entirely lucid for them. Two casual chat therapy sessions, trying to wrap his head around the mess in his brain with her help. A fitting session for the leg brace, so that he can walk while his hip heals. Bucky doesn’t particularly want to be triggered into the monster Hydra made him, not around Shuri. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

“I think…” Shuri catches his eye, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a smile. “I know how to help you. Would you consent to a brain scan? It may be impossible to completely remove the neural pathways they programmed into you, the tracks your memories are forced to take and dead end at… but I may be able to reprogram them, to dead end the violent ones and bypass the painful ones.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “You want to brainwash me, don’t you?”

“Listen, just because you might come out of it thinking I’m the coolest, most amazing, smartest person on the planet doesn’t mean I’ve brainwashed you.” Shuri giggles behind her hand, nodding. “I want to reprogram the brainwashing that’s been done, to make it easier for your brain to heal itself going forward.”

Does he want to be better? Yeah, of course. Does he want to be brainwashed into it? That sounds less appealing. Bucky shivers, rubbing one hand against his thigh slowly. “Do I have a choice about this?”

Her surprise is evident, her eyebrows raising slightly before her lips purse together in concern. “Of course you do, Sergeant Barnes.”

“I…” He swallows, slowly crushing the empty water bottle in his left hand. The fluttering wrapper of a meal bar, being plucked out of that same deadly metal hand by the nimble fingers of the Handler. The nice Handler, the one that--Bucky shuts the thoughts off, there _were_ no nice Handlers. “I’ll think about it?”

Shuri sends him back to the suite after another few minutes, and for once Bucky’s glad to be alone there. He _likes_ Steve and he gets along with Natasha, but all he wants right now is peace and quiet, a chance to nap.

He tucks himself under a blanket on the couch, the best sightlines in the entire suite, and curls up tight, eyes on the closed door until his lids become too heavy. Bucky falls into the blackness of sleep with something like relief, some of the tension easing out of his muscles.

* * *

Make a choice.

It’s an easy thing, making a choice, but Bucky finds himself paralyzed in the face of it, more often than not.

_“Make a choice, who do you want to listen to, him or me?”_

He doesn’t know, can’t remember, who _him_ or _me_ is. What choice he made. The voice is achingly familiar, echoing around in his head, the feeling of a warm hand on his shoulder.

_“You’re under strict orders not to engage in combat, Soldier.”_

The same voice? Or is he getting his memories blurred up? Bucky rolls over on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

He hears the door open and no footsteps, which means Natasha--she’s safe, she’s not sneaking up on him. There’s a small ‘oh’ in her voice from across the room, before the door shuts and she makes her footsteps heard. “Didn’t know you were back already.”

“Was I supposed to check in?” He slides his gaze to her as she toes her shoes off by the door, watching the taut muscles of her thighs flex under her jeans.

“Nothing like that, I just figured Shuri wouldn’t be so quick to give you up.” She enters the kitchen, her voice raising and carrying. “How’d it go?”

“We talked about how memories work. She…” Bucky sits up, pushing the blanket off and making room on the couch as she comes back with a heaping plate of food. “She wants to scan my brain and reprogram me so that I can heal.”

Around a forkful of something that smells rich and earthy, Natasha asks the very question he can’t seem to answer. “So, you gonna do it?”

“I… Do you think I should?” Make a choice. Make a goddamn choice, this shouldn’t be _hard_.

She eyes him carefully, taking another oversized bite. “Nice try, Barnes, but I’m giving no input. And I’m not going to let Steve, either. You have to make this decision yourself.”

He huffs, looking away quickly. She’s too damned perceptive, she’ll catch on to his--his what? There is no mission. There’s nothing for him to hide. Bucky swallows thickly, folding his hands in his lap. “It’s not easy, okay?”

“I know. But you’ve gotta take that first step yourself. Whatever choice you make will be right, because _you’ll_ be making it.”

_Do not kill Steve Rogers._

_Who do you want to listen to?_

_Strict orders not to engage in combat._

_Steve Rogers survives._

He sucks in a breath, reaching up and covering his ears against the voice in his head. Natasha cocks her head to the side next to him, easing her feet down to the floor. He’s too aware of everything and lost in his own head at the same time, he wants to scream, or run, or fight, or--

_I don’t have to kill._

Bucky jolts his head up a moment before the doorknob turns, his eyes locked on the figure that walks into the room. “Steve--” He all but gasps, shoving to his feet, nearly tackling him against the door. Steve braces with the hit, his arms wrapping around Bucky.

“Hey, missed you, too.”

“I don’t have to kill,” he murmurs into Steve’s neck, feeling the arms that hesitantly wrap around him, pat his back. “I remember--I _remember_ that. Strict orders not to engage in combat. Do not kill Steve Rogers. He told me those things, he said I didn’t have to kill anyone.” Fuck, he’s babbling, but it’s so crystal clear in his head, the orders, the Handler who gave him the orders, and they suddenly _mean_ something to him. “I made a choice.” Bucky pulls back enough to look at Steve’s face, at the soft smile trying to bury the perplexity there. “I made a _choice_ ,” he repeats, stressing the word. “I can make another one. Right?

Steve gently moves him back to arm’s length, his smile more genuine. He glances past Bucky to Natasha, meeting her gaze, before focusing on Bucky again. “Yeah, Buck. You can make as many choices as you want. I’ll back you up, no matter what.”

It doesn’t make actually _choosing_ between the options easier, but… some of the weight slides off him. He can make a choice.


	5. Don’t Tell Me You Cried (Honey, You Don’t Have To Lie)

It’s not easy and it’s not fast, but a month down the line, Bucky no longer freezes in place when Steve asks him what he wants for breakfast. He no longer goes to Steve for permission before leaving the room--though he still, more often than not, invites the other man along. Shuri promises that he’s making progress, and they can _see_ that, but there’s an air of concern for all of them. A fear of a backslide, made worse whenever Bucky wakes screaming and thrashing from a nightmare.

He doesn’t talk about the nightmares, and maybe Steve should push the issue, find him someone to talk to. They’re not frequent, he’s only had maybe half a dozen in the time they’ve been in Wakanda, but they’re terrifying.

Steve jolts awake in the dark, holding his breath as his heart pounds in his chest. Silence. Absolute silence across the suite they’re in. Natasha’s long gone back to America, back to her own life. It’s just him and Bucky and even in separate rooms, Steve can usually hear Bucky’s soft snoring that means he’s so deeply asleep he’s actually _relaxed_.

There’s nothing. Steve sits up slowly, reaching for the light switch. He almost lets out a high-pitched scream when the light flicks on and reveals Bucky in the corner of the room.

“Buck?”

The other man jolts, lurches towards him and drops to his knees. His face is flushed, his eyes glassy. If this is a nightmare, he’s really going to have to start pushing that ‘talk to someone about it’ issue.

“Talk to me, Bucky.”

Finally, he makes a sound, a low whine in the back of his throat. The voice that comes out isn’t Bucky, it’s too high, too soft, too accented. “Long term medication doesn’t hold up to the freezes.” He swallows, licks his lips, and this time his voice is his own. Weak and shaky, but his own. “Steve, I… I need… I’m…”

It hits him like a wave of perfume, the scent of helpless arousal from Bucky, the warmth radiating from him. He swings his legs out of the bed, brackets in Bucky’s shoulders with his knees and draws him closer. “How’d you ride it out last time?”

Bucky flinches and it tells Steve enough.

He pulls the Omega up onto the bed, securing his arms around him, pressing Bucky’s face gently to his neck. His hand slides up and down Bucky’s back, staying above his waist, holding him close. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine. I’ll get you whatever you ask for.” He pauses, thinking on it, before kissing Bucky’s temple. “As in actually ask me for with words, not just what your body makes me think you want.”

The wet, shuddery breath against his neck is as close as Bucky’s gotten to crying since they met again. He grips Steve’s t-shirt, his words muffled by the Alpha’s skin. “Tell me the truths.”

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Your friends call you Bucky. You were born on March 10, 1917. Your mother’s name is…” He keeps going, through Bucky’s life until this moment. Pauses, feels the hitch of breath against his skin, and starts again.

Steve cycles through the truths, the facts of Bucky’s life, three times before the sun comes up. Five before the need for food gets him out of bed. He tucks Bucky, mostly asleep, into his blanket, lets him hug his pillow. Things that smell like Steve, like his Alpha scent.

He makes a call to their guard while the coffee brews, explains that they’re not to be disturbed until Steve says otherwise. “Bucky’s going into heat,” he explains over the phone, glancing at the door to his bedroom. “I’m gonna try to help him ride it out, but I don’t want to overwhelm him.”

“I thought he was given a suppression injection previously?”

Steve shrugs, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he pours two cups of coffee. “He says that long term medication doesn’t work on him. We can figure it out after this. Just--the two of us won’t be available for a while.” He hesitates, biting his lip. No one’s accused him of anything… _untoward_ , living as Alpha and Omega unbonded. It isn’t the 30s anymore. “We’ve been in this situation before. I’ll help him out the same way he used to help me out.” Lots of closeness, lots of scent sharing, lots of distractions from the constant arousal. It’ll be easier now, with television and the internet. Before it’d been a matter of long conversations about books and the few movies they’d both seen.

Bucky’s curled up tight in his blankets when he comes back, his eyes wide and staring out of the nest. Steve sets the coffee cups on the table beside the bed, settling against the pillows. Still a respectful distance away, but the invitation is clear in his body language. After a moment, Bucky takes it, sliding fully onto his lap and resting against him. “Not a word, punk.”

“I brought coffee, jerk.”

They drink their coffee as the sun climbs higher, mentally prepare themselves for the days to come.

* * *

It’s not too different than before. Steve scrolls his tablet, reading titles and summaries of movies aloud, finally selecting one from the list. Old science fiction, movies that propose a world so fantastical, he sometimes forgets that he currently lives in it. Traveling to other planets, instantly communicating with people around the world, the futuristic wonder of the _video phone_. Bucky curls against him, his head resting on Steve’s shoulder as they watch

“I don’t get it,” Bucky murmurs eventually, tilting his head to look away from the tablet, meeting Steve’s eyes. “What’s with the 50s and giant things?”

He frowns, thinking on it for a moment. “Cold war, I guess? Post-nuclear America, when we start to realize that radiation is terrifying? Clint could probably explain it better.” Steve considers for a moment. “Or Bruce.”

Bucky hums, reaching up and scrolling through the list of movies on the screen. He pauses on one, frowning. “They made a movie based on the old Superman comics? Weird.”

“You wanna watch it?”

He shrugs, pressing the play button. “Worst case we get bored and fall asleep.”

They’re maybe half an hour into the movie when he feels Bucky’s eyes on him. Steve keeps his gaze on the screen, though his weight shifts slightly, pulling the other man a little closer. “Mm?”

“I need…” Steve’s full attention sweeps to Bucky, the tablet being set aside, the movie left to play on unseen and unheard. Whatever Bucky needs, or wants, it’s Steve’s job to take care of him. Not just as Alpha to Omega, but as his _friend_. 

Bucky’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. He squirms, shakes Steve’s arm off his shoulders and puts a little distance between them. “When I was in the hospital, did you… Were we… Fuck, it’s all sorts of mixed up in my head, Steve. Did they do somethin’ to me and make me think it was you, or did you do somethin’ to me and let me think it was them, or did I just imagine the whole thing?” He rubs his temples, breathing in and out slowly. “Hate not being able to trust my own brain.”

“What event are you confused about?” Steve keeps his voice even, calm. A denial too fast will sound like a lie, even if he’s being honest. It won’t assure Bucky of his memories.

He looks away, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck slowly. “I was in a hospital. Couldn’t move. Wasn’t tied down or nothin’, just… couldn’t move. They sent in a Handler who looked like you. And I think he… I was…” His throat works convulsively, his eyes cast down. “I didn’t think about you, when they had me. I kept you locked up, secret inside my brain. ‘Cause… ‘Cause I knew that as long as I kept you away from them, they couldn’t have all of me. Except they musta known that, they had the machines that could see inside my head, could see when I was thinking, and they musta found you in there. They sent in one that looked like you and they made it so thinkin’ about you wasn’t safe anymore. Wasn’t good. Made me not want to, and as soon as I didn’t want to, they made it so I couldn’t. But…” He scrubs a hand against his face, groaning. “I sound like a crazy person.”

“You don’t. You’ve been through a lot, it’s going to come out a little mixed up. What did they do, to make thinking about me unsafe?” His hands rest lightly against his thighs, his eyes steady as they follow Bucky’s movements. He knows better than to move abruptly, than to touch, but he’ll intervene if Bucky starts hurting himself. It’s a possibility.

“Told me to lie down. Close my eyes. Go to sleep. I don’t know after that, but--” Bucky breathes uneasily, squirming in place. “They did _this_ to me, you know?” He doesn’t clarify, doesn’t need to. The scent of Omega heat is heady in the room. “But then the next memory is you and now and you finding out what they made me.”

Steve closes his eyes for a moment, his fingers digging into the muscles of his thighs hard enough to bruise. “I can’t promise that they _didn’t_ do anything to you, Buck… but I can tell you my version of that night.”

“Please?”

He can’t deny Bucky anything. Nevermind the instinct to protect, to care for. Nevermind the years of Bucky doing the same for him. Nevermind the chance to grab back and hold tight to what seven decades on ice almost stole from him. Steve can’t deny Bucky anything because he _loves_ him, like a brother, a best friend, a single shining star in a pitch black sky. He loves him in a way that time can’t stop, that space can’t lessen. 

So Steve tells him, his hands shaking with it, his voice raw and cracking. It doesn’t matter that he hadn’t meant to push boundaries he couldn’t see; that he acted only with good intentions. Maybe they did something before and maybe they didn’t, but he did something this time and he needs to own up to it.

“I went for a drink while you were asleep. Sam and Natasha were back at the hotel. Came back in the room and you were awake. Confused. Acting like… that middle one, the one that’s you but not fully. You were… scared, I think. Of me. And I didn’t…” _know how to deal with it_ , he swallows down the easy excuse and forces out the hard truth. “I didn’t want you to be scared of me. So I didn’t try to help you through it, help you refocus. I just told you to go back to sleep. I knew you’d listen, knew you wouldn’t fight when I pushed you down. Fuck, Bucky, I’m--”

 _So sorry_ doesn’t make it out of his mouth before lips seal over his. When Steve opens his eyes (when did he close them?), Bucky is looking at him with an unreadable expression, leaned in barely a breath away.

“You’re a big dummy,” he whispers, dropping his head to Steve’s shoulder. “I ain’t never been scared of you, punk. You’re the path that leads me home.”

His heart clenches in his chest and his arms move without his permission, wrap around Bucky and pull him in closer. “I love you,” he murmurs into the other man’s hair, his eyes squeezing shut again. “More than anything.”

“You better.” The cocksure words make them both laugh a little, before Bucky squirms closer, almost in his lap. “Gimme a good memory, Steve. Show me the way home again.”

He doesn’t need to ask twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus finishes Part 2 of the series!
> 
> Okay so now's where I level with youse guys. This series has been in progress since roughly June of 2019 and to be totally honest? I lost a lot of steam with it around November of 2019. As in, I haven't written anything for it since around then.
> 
> Currently my plan is to have 3 stories in Part 3 (one Brock&Clint, one Tony&Peter, one Steve&Bucky) and while the Brock&Clint story is done, about half the Tony&Peter one is and hardly any of the Steve&Bucky one. Then there's Part 4, which isn't even started yet. So, aside from the usual week off between parts, I don't actually know if I'm going to keep going with this.
> 
> Would y'all rather get the bits and pieces that I have done posted, or would you rather wait for me to finish the series on the whole and then continue posting? On the one hand, we leave unanswered questions all over, on the other I don't know how long until the whole thing is done.
> 
> Alternatively, I do have a different story that I've been working on that I could start posting (once I edit it, I fucking hate editing, everyone) if you guys are more interested in And Now For Something Completely Different.
> 
> Leave me comments, let me know if you'd rather wait for a complete story and get something new in the meanwhile, or get the bits and hope my motivation for a/b/o returns from war with posting part 3. <3 <3 love all y'all, thank you for coming with me on this mad journey.


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